oh, hollywood, no.
Aug. 19th, 2010 11:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eleanorjaneOver the last couple of days I've been mainlining the first season of Human Target, a fun midseason Fox show that actually survived its first season. It's ridiculous in so many ways; the hero is an action star of the old school, James Bond and Batman all rolled into one, and the plots are kind of hole-y. But it's fun, and it doesn't take itself seriously, and there's some nice banter, and the fight scenes are good, and the lead is weirdly hot, and it has Jackie Earle Haley in it.
(It is also filmed, like everything else these days, in Vancouver, and it's totally an exercise in Hey It's That Guy. So far I've seen Lorne, Grodin, Zelenka, Caldwell and Halling from SGA; Six, Eight and Gaeta from BSG; Fred from Angel; Methos from Highlander; Marshall from Alias; Riley from Painkiller Jane; Ellen from Supernatural; Simon from Firefly; Bling from Dark Angel; Ethan Rom from Lost; Cassie from Hex; plus Lee Majors, Armande Assante, Moon Bloodgood, Leonor Varela, and Erick Avari. And Danny Glover, in the most random cameo ever. I'm just waiting for Mark Sheppard to show up now.)
The premise is that Our Hero, Christopher Chance, the man with a jaw more chiselled than the heads on Mount Rushmore, is a high-ticket bodyguard who protects people facing death threats by luring their attackers into the open so they can be neutralised. Fine, interesting enough to base a dozen episodes on, but there's one thing that really irks me: there's an unpleasant streak of sexism in the show.
Of the twelve cases we see, six are protecting women, four are protecting men, one is Chance avenging a buddy and saving his own skin, and one is Chance getting revenge on an enemy and saving a whole group of (anonymous) people. That's not too bad a gender split, except that the male clients are generally capable men who either sit in the background or assist in the job; the female clients, however, are definitely shown as being helpless, vulnerable, and utterly in need of protection. They might be strong, awesome women in day to day life (an engineer, a district attorney, a hacker, a doctor, and an incredibly awesome crown princess) but they all need Chance to protect them. Only one of the four male clients is written this way, but five of the six female clients are.
It's not enough to ruin the show for me, but it certainly is enough to make me roll my eyes when I see it happening again and again and again. I hope next season is better in that regard - but it's a Fox show, so I'm not holding my breath.
(It is also filmed, like everything else these days, in Vancouver, and it's totally an exercise in Hey It's That Guy. So far I've seen Lorne, Grodin, Zelenka, Caldwell and Halling from SGA; Six, Eight and Gaeta from BSG; Fred from Angel; Methos from Highlander; Marshall from Alias; Riley from Painkiller Jane; Ellen from Supernatural; Simon from Firefly; Bling from Dark Angel; Ethan Rom from Lost; Cassie from Hex; plus Lee Majors, Armande Assante, Moon Bloodgood, Leonor Varela, and Erick Avari. And Danny Glover, in the most random cameo ever. I'm just waiting for Mark Sheppard to show up now.)
The premise is that Our Hero, Christopher Chance, the man with a jaw more chiselled than the heads on Mount Rushmore, is a high-ticket bodyguard who protects people facing death threats by luring their attackers into the open so they can be neutralised. Fine, interesting enough to base a dozen episodes on, but there's one thing that really irks me: there's an unpleasant streak of sexism in the show.
Of the twelve cases we see, six are protecting women, four are protecting men, one is Chance avenging a buddy and saving his own skin, and one is Chance getting revenge on an enemy and saving a whole group of (anonymous) people. That's not too bad a gender split, except that the male clients are generally capable men who either sit in the background or assist in the job; the female clients, however, are definitely shown as being helpless, vulnerable, and utterly in need of protection. They might be strong, awesome women in day to day life (an engineer, a district attorney, a hacker, a doctor, and an incredibly awesome crown princess) but they all need Chance to protect them. Only one of the four male clients is written this way, but five of the six female clients are.
It's not enough to ruin the show for me, but it certainly is enough to make me roll my eyes when I see it happening again and again and again. I hope next season is better in that regard - but it's a Fox show, so I'm not holding my breath.
